Promised
by Victoria Bitter
Summary: TTT/ROTK AU...what if Shelob's sting had been all that Sam feared?


Summary: TTT/ROTK AU: What if Shelob's sting had been all that Sam feared?  
  
Disclaimer: The hobbits are his. The story and what if are mine.  
  
Author's notes: Warning…this is *dark.*  
  
***  
  
"Good bye, Master, my dear!" he murmured. "Forgive your Sam. He'll come back to this spot when the job's done - if he manages it. And then he'll not leave you again. Rest you quiet til I come; and may no foul creature come anigh you! And if the Lady could hear me and give me one wish, I wish to come back and find you again. Good bye!"  
  
"The Choices of Master Samwise" - The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien  
  
***  
  
Sunlight had come again to the land of Mordor. The darkness that once had choked it under the rule of Sauron had rent asunder, shattering in a maelstrom of flame and thunder as the master of it's making had come to destruction in the fires of his own forge, and now the light of day fell as easily upon that blasted land as upon the green fields of Gondor. Life that had not quite surrendered hope now found tenacity rewarded as scrub brush and withered flowers stretched exultantly towards that fabled gilt that poured down upon them, and here and there, new shoots long buried and denied could be seen to break green the charred soil.  
  
It was an atmosphere of new hope and gentle rebirth, but there were some who found no sweetness in it. The Orcs, that race so cruelly made and abruptly orphaned, now scuttled in the shadows, hiding from this new light. Once great armies, they were now no more than frightened bands of reluctant survivors, their sudden lack of leadership lending them to slaughter their own kind more numerously even than the bands of soldiers who rode out from Gondor now to that same purpose. They died in the hundreds of thousands, cursing this new light and he who brought it.  
  
Had he known, he would have perhaps laughed at such curses. Not out of any sense of haughty invulnerability, but indeed, a dear appreciation for their suffering. He would likely claim their curses all too keen, for the odd workings of fate had dictated that this being of such great and terrible change was neither a great King of Men, nor some Elf-Lord with gleaming blade and proud step, but rather a hobbit, and a humble hobbit at that: a gardener who now walked with slow and weary step into a place where the sunlight still could not reach.  
  
Samwise Gamgee of the Shire, youngest son of Hamfast, had destroyed the One Ring of Power, casting it deep into the fires of the Cracks of Doom, but the cost - oh! The cost had been higher than the shards of his heart wished to remember.  
  
Some of it was evidenced on his body now. Once, he had been strong as any hobbit could wish, but now his clothing hung loose as flags of defeat, bones clear on thin wrists and plump, soft belly fallen to a tight hollow of privation, uncertain legs barely mustering strength enough to carry him across the broken shale of the gorge. His right arm was clutched to his breast, bound tight with a filthy and makeshift bandage stained russet in too many places, marks of his struggle with the vicious, snapping teeth of the creature Gollum in those last moments of the Ring.  
  
Gollum had attacked him there in the Cracks of Doom, maddened with fear for his Precious, but any pity Sam may have once felt for the wretch had been spent on the stilled breast of his Master, and Sting had soon found a home in shrieking, shriveled flesh. Still, Sam had been weakened already, and the victory had come neither fast nor easy. The destruction of Mt. Doom had swallowed a fair bit of hobbit blood, and his strength was now so waned that he knew his time could not be long.  
  
It didn't matter. He was grateful for Gandalf's great eagles that had rescued him from the shattering slopes of the mountain, but not because the face of death itself was so terrible. He had refused the wizard's intention to take him to a place of healing and celebration, and he thought now with great love and gratitude upon the understanding that had come so painfully into those wise and ancient eyes. His own small body could not have kept the long miles of his promise, but Gandalf knew Sam's quest was not yet completed, and he had been kind enough to bring him here, to the place where the song would end.  
  
Here, where his last oath remained to be fulfilled. Where the dearest price of all was yet to be met. Here, where his beloved Master had fallen.  
  
He trembled as he stepped deeper into the gorge, but it was neither weakness nor cold that shook him, but fear. Fear for what he might now find. The image held so blackly treasured in his memory was of Frodo lying as serenely beautiful as a statue carved of starlight, but the days had long ago blurred into weeks, and many beasts crawled through Mordor searching for the taste of flesh. Even Shelob still lurked somewhere hereabouts. Had she come skulking from her lair to claim the prey that had caused her such pain? And even if no animal had disturbed Frodo's body, there was the heartless ravages of nature herself. Would the sight of a stripped and barren skull replace the sweet lines of Frodo's face in his mind's eye?  
  
No. No matter what time or fell beast had done, his love would always paint Frodo young and hale, rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed from the days before sorrow had touched their world. If there was but a scrap of cloak remaining, he would keep his promise to that, and if there were nothing at all, the spot was carved in blood into his heart, and he would keep its memory true.  
  
His eyes, accustomed now to weeks of traveling in gloom, scanned deeply and easily into the dark shadows of the gorge, and he soon saw the familiar and sheltering overhang of the cliff where he had hidden his Master. The sight brought a final strength to his limbs, and he ran, falling breathless to his knees beneath the cliff face, his hand fisted to his mouth in speechless, bitter joy.  
  
Sam had shed no tears since he was torn by duty from Frodo's side, but now they flowed thick down his cheeks, blurring his vision until he cuffed them harshly away to allow his eyes to drink freely of the miracle before him.  
  
Frodo's body lay as he had left it, cloak pillowed beneath his head, hands crossed gently over his breast, face not twisted by any morbid rictus, but more peaceful now in death than the torture of the Ring had allowed him in life. The flesh was pale, but there was a purity in the pallor, an icy translucency unmarred by decay, and when Sam lifted Frodo's cold hand to his cheek, he found it still as firm and soft as though he had fallen to hours of sleep rather than weeks of death.  
  
It was impossible, yet blossoming from the dark red dust near Frodo's head was another impossibility, more delicate and lovely than anything in the memory of this forsaken land: a star-shaped white flower, precious to a woodland a lifetime away. An elanor. Sam bowed his head as the sobs began to shake his shoulders, closing his eyes with a smile on cracked and bleeding lips. "Thank you, Lady! I wanted no more. No more than to see him again, even as so! Thank you."  
  
For what seemed like forever and not near enough, he knelt there, holding his Master's hand tight in his as the tears poured down his cheeks, weeping away all the black days since they had first left the Shire, still so innocent of the Evil that Frodo bore. He had been young then, thinking of little more than gardens and good meals and warm fires that made Mr. Frodo's eyes shine like the stars themselves, but now he was old - so terribly, terribly old - and he had lived beyond anything that mattered. His Frodo was gone, and without him, nowhere could ever be home again, nothing ever keep meaning or joy in a heart that had been half torn away.  
  
At length, the shadows grew darker still, and Sam raised his head to see the sky thinly visible at the top of the gorge was deepening to night. It was time. Taking a deep breath, he set Frodo's hand down again, then stood. His tattered cloak he spread against the side of the cliff, and the remains of his faithful pack set upon that. He then closed his eyes, summoning the last of his strength, and bent to take Frodo in his grasp.  
  
Sam had been afraid that his weary body would betray him and drop that most precious of burdens, but to his amazement, Frodo seemed no heavier than a dream, and he embraced him close, the dark curls soft against his neck. He settled them down together on the cloak, his back against the cliff as he arranged his Master's body as they had so often lain together, both on those dark roads and before that in simple comfort beneath the shade of Shire oaks. Frodo's head was in his lap, Sam's arm across his shoulders in gentle protection, and for a moment, he could almost allow himself to believe that things were right again.  
  
But Frodo was too cold, too still for things ever to be right again, and Sam could feel his own life beginning to fade. He had gone far, so far beyond anything a hobbit should ever have been called to do, but now he had done his duty, and it was time to rest. The pain of his wounds had left him now, and he felt strangely light, as if the only things quite real anymore were his fingertips against the soft weave of Frodo's Elven cloak. He could no longer tell if the blackness fading into his vision was nightfall or something deeper, but he did not care.  
  
A smile, at last serene and untainted by sorrow, warmed his face as he let himself settle back into the darkness, and a soft whisper slid quiet love into that place that had once known only evil. "I'm coming, Mr. Frodo. There's nowhere I shan't follow."  
  
THE END 


End file.
